Friday, 4 May 2012

When God asks the impossible.

It’s time to engage with the
Old Testament again and it’s a tough story today.

God (apparently) commands
Abraham, his faithful follower, to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as
a test of obedience.

There are different ways of
looking at a story, and it’s the same with this one.

I’d like to offer a theological
and then a personal look at the story.

In one sense the command to
sacrifice Isaac is a 'set piece' in the collective Judeo-Christian canon - a ‘type’ of sacrifice which is fulfilled ultimately in Christ’s own death and resurrection.

(Artwork - Roussimoff)

Both Abraham and God are fathers who are willing to give up their only sons.

But this analogy is probably a
bit crass from a Trinitarian point of view.

Yes, God the Father gives up
his only Son, but in another sense, God became flesh and was wholly involved within
himself in the mystery of the Incarnation, crucifixion and
resurrection.

2 Corinthians 5:19 says

‘For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.’

So it wouldn’t be right to
draw the conclusion, as some atheist commentators have done, that God is a
sadist in sending his Son to die, whilst remaining unaffected himself.

God the Holy Trinity is not
divided.

So here is the theological
version of the story of Abraham and Isaac:

Faithful Abraham is asked to
give up his son; his actions prove his obedience; God intervenes and provides
the offering himself; God now knows that Abraham really is faithful.

It would be similar for Job.

But is the theological take
on it enough?

When we read the bible we may
have a number of reactions.

We may read the stories in
isolation from our experience, as standalone bible gems that do not touch our
lives at all.

Or we can read them from a ‘what
if this happened to me?’ angle.

When Jesus told stories they provoked a reaction from his hearers.

He asked awkward questions:

‘Who do people say that I am?

‘Who was a real neighbour to
the man?

In the
same way, God would have us engage with the stories of the bible personally.

‘One of the bigger
mistakes people make in reading Scripture is that they read it as a spectator.
For them Scripture is a collection of stories and events that took place
thousands of years ago. True enough, we are reading historical accounts. But,
truth be told these ancient stories are our stories. We are in the narrative.
You are Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Deborah, Jeremiah, Ruth, Peter, Paul, Magdalene,
Mother Mary, and, if you are prepared to accept it, you are also Jesus.’

1 comment:

We may all have adopted many "sons and daughters" in our lives, cherished thoughts, attitudes, things we feel certain are "right". But when I am convinced that I'm doing the right thing, then Thomas a Kempis warns that that is when I am likely to do the most evil. Perhaps the story is symbolic, warning us that God is bigger, more powerful more glorious than we can imagine. He asks us to do the impossible just to show us how limited our thinking is.